Crazy Rich Asians

Director: Jon M. Chu Starring: Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, Awkwafina

At New York’s Serendipity 3 café, money-is-no- object customers can order a $1,000 sundae that’s garnished with gold leaf. Like plunking a cherry atop such an extravagant dessert, the delirious sugar high that is “Crazy Rich Asians” ends with fireworks exploding along the roof of Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands hotel — one of the world’s most expensive buildings. Surprisingly enough, it’s the first touch that genuinely feels over-the-top in a movie that expertly manages to balance the opulence of incalculable wealth with the pragmatic, well- grounded sensibility embodied by its heroine, Rachel Chu (Constance Wu), a middle- class economics professor who discovers that her Singapore-born boyfriend is not just handsome but worth more than the GDP of most countries.

If those pyrotechnic bursts seem to be gilding the lily, it’s only because Warner Bros.’ spare-no- expense adaptation of Kevin Kwan’s status- obsessed bestseller already feels like a grand, two-hour fireworks show, one in which gorgeous Asian stars parade around in dazzling, brightly colored couture, driving luxury cars to and from locations that suggest a cross between Versailles and Donald Trump’s bathroom (no, really, those are the design influences). Normally, such grandiosity is reserved for the queen of England, or the rarefied circles in which James Bond operates, although director Jon M. Chu (“Step Up 2: The Streets”) has crafted a broadly appealing charmer in which practically anyone can identify with Wu’s character as she’s whisked into this elite milieu.